Hey fam, I am a recent graduate from the College of Charleston, and I currently work as a Residence Hall Director at Berry Residence Hall (C of C). I also serve as head coach for James Island Charter High School Men's Rugby where I oversee rugby operations and player development. In my free time, I love reading and listening to hip-hip (my senior capstone project was on Kanye West and Walt Whitman). As a West Virginia native, you'll be sure to see me rocking the Old Gold and Blue to class, as well!
My overarching goal for this course is to become more comfortable with the digital interface as a whole. Technology normally intimidates me until I get a good grasp of what I'm trying to use, so the more I learn from this class, the more I'll be inclined to use technology in the classroom. As a coach, I am a skills-oriented person, so I'm eager to gain skills throughout our class and hopefully recognize some skills that will be useful to my students in the future. To me, teaching and coaching require close attention to development models, which are essentially the steps instructors (on the field or the classroom) take to build their students' competence and performance. Therefore, I would like to take what I gain from this class to re-imagine long-term pedagogy, and to perhaps gain more insight on how current students best develop.
Admittedly, I am a bit ambivalent toward the digital interface; I think our worship of technology is counterproductive to our development as a social species, but technology is a reality for our students, and much of their success in the world will depend on their technological competence. To perhaps sway my position in a more positive direction, I would like this class to prioritize the "why" component of each assignment. What is the goal of using a digital interface as opposed to alternatives? What outcomes will benefit my students? Hopefully my own development with technology will equip me with ways to make the classroom experience more effective.
For my Prezi, I basically chose to replicate the main ideas of a lesson one of my high school teachers continues to deliver to her classes, which hits on the weight O'Brien places on "truth" and "fiction." I thought the balance-scale format was perfect for how I wanted to represent my thoughts on The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
As an interactive canvas, my prezi moves students from the novel's commentary on "truth" to its value as a fictional literary work. This movement is set up to fit two purposes. 1) To develop a clear understanding of why a seemingly nonfictional account contributes so strongly as a work of fiction. The Prezi introduces the novel as a metafictional work, providing a framework with which they can understand the various narrative shifts that may confuse the untrained eye. 2) To meet a South Carolina Standard. The standard listed above prioritizes the narrative's perspective as it relates to the author's style. Again, my Prezi meets this standard by providing a general framework and highlighting major techniques O'Brien uses to bring meaning to the text's surface. Overall, I think the Prezi is an effective tool for representing a text in a way that utilizes time and space, and I hope I soon have the fortune of teaching this material to my own students.
Digital Storytelling Assignment
Students will conduct their own digital storytelling project that is intended to model "Vox Rap" reports. These reports provide in-depth analysis behind the best of hip-hop's artists, both in sound and verbal production. The students' reports, however, will be geared toward the minute details that give rich meaning to literary works. This project will tap into students' creative reserves and transfer essay writing skills we have developed in-class to a vastly different textual interface, one which includes dynamic imaging and sound. Attached below is a lesson plan detailing the in-class time spent to build necessary skills for connecting small textual details to textual significance, a skill impressively demonstrated in these "Vox" reports.
Note: separate lesson time will be spent training students to use their technology to complete the assignment
Project Description
As a class, we will become acquainted with reports done by Vox, an online news outlet that delves into social, political, and artistic paradigms on an academic level. Kanye Deconstructed and Rapping Deconstructed are two videos closely related to analysis on artistic creation. Notice how these two videos accomplish the following:
- introduce viewers to the topic
- use a variety of representations to support main ideas
- use movement and transitions to make the piece continual, fluid
- provide a unique perspective on artistic techniques
Sound familiar? It should! We can credit the Vox videos with accomplishing many of the same goals we strive to achieve in our essays. Your job, therefore, is to make your own Vox-styled report on The Scarlet Letter, which we have recently finished.
First, you will write a 5 paragraph essay responding to the following prompt:
In a well-organized essay, identify a significant theme in The Scarlet Letter and show how the author's stylistic choices contribute to this theme. Your essay should include quotes from text as supporting evidence. (500-600 words)
Second, you will use your school-assigned device to create a Vox report based on the thesis and supporting details of your essay.
There are various online tools you can use to make your report. Primary movie making applications for Microsoft and Apple computers are MovieMaker and iMovie, respectively. You can also utilize sites like Animation 101 and Make Beliefs Comix if you prefer an animated approach. In any case, I would like to share my own steps for creating my video, and you can adjust these steps as you see fit for your project:
1) Create a script based on your essay
2) Storyboarding- draft how you want the video to unfold visually
3) Find online images (or videos, including your own) that fulfill your vision
4) Import images/videos
5) Record your narration
6) Edit (cutting, transitioning, add subtitles)
7) Save and share
Be sure to check out my Vox report (above) to get a general sense of how a Vox report looks from a literary aspect, but be sure to assert your own creativity in your project, as well.
Editing Assignment
For this in-class assignment, AP Language & Composition students will work together to elevate a sample rhetorical free response essay (5 paragraph) to a higher score. First, students will be given their own copy of the essay to highlight the following:
- needless prepositional phrases
- sentences, clauses, or phrases that stray from the thesis statement
- sentences, clauses, or phrases that cater to the thesis, but are misplaced in the essay
Image result for smartboard
Students will be split into three groups, each group assigned with one of the above tasks, highlighting every portion of the essay that applies. If touch pad technology is available to us, they will complete this segment on their touch pad. They will be given 10 minutes to
read through the essay in its entirety before coming together as a group to complete the highlighting. Next, we will put the essay on whatever front-class technology is available to us (projector, SmartBoard, etc). We will move one paragraph at a time, reviewing the purpose and function of each paragraph along the way (introduction, body, conclusion). At each paragraph, we will also work together to decide what phrases, sentences, and clauses can be cut from the essay. We will then go back through to appropriately rearrange the misplaced phrases, sentences, and clauses that cater to the thesis. Using the AP scoring guide, we will decide if these changes alone have elevated this essay's score. For homework, students will take one of their own in-class essays they have written and complete the same process. As a final step, they should build their essay back up and re-score it using the AP score guide.
This assignment aims to accomplish the following:
1) Students will be able to recognize the "fat" of rhetorical writing
2) Students will be able to break down and rebuild their own writing
3) Students will become familiar with the AP scoring guidelines
Oral History Assignment
Now that we have read Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, we will revisit the controversy surrounding Twain’s use of the “n-word” throughout the novel. First, we will watch this 60 Minutes special on the topic. Here, our host interviews four participants: Randall Williams (New South Publisher), David Bradley (Author and Professor), Karen Morrow (high school teacher), and Nora Weiss (high school teacher), each of whom brings a unique perspective and opinion on the ethics surrounding the original publication.
Your job: Choose one of the above interviewees and first tell us their overall argument in a thesis statement (1-2 sentences). Next, use textual evidence from the novel to support their position (3 body paragraphs) and come to conclusion on how we should handle teaching Huck Finn in the class room (concluding paragraph). Your argument should accomplish the following:
- Identify whose position you support, clearly state their argument
- Properly cite your source (Huck Finn) and use quotations to support your main ideas
- Formally negate opposing viewpoints (ex.- this is David Bradley’s chance to directly respond to Randall Williams)
- Propose a solution to the controversy (Should the text be taught? If so, how?)
Here are some questions to consider when pulling evidence from the text:
- Where does the word become a distraction to the story?
- Where does the word contribute to our understanding of the story?
- What words, if any, can replace the word and maintain the story’s meaning/ impact?
- Does the word provide a “teaching moment?”
- What does this word do for Huck and Jim’s relationship? How does our reading of the word change as their relationship changes? Or does it not change at all?
On the assignment's due date, I will post all responses onto our class blog. Then, you will choose a peer's response that takes a different perspective and comment on their argument. In your comment, you should mention the aspects of their argument you most appreciated and why. All comments will be reviewed before posting, so be sure to maintain the professionalism expected of your own assignment.
I modeled my wiki after my own experience in an AP Literature class. Although AP classes are often closely tied to the test and demand lots of time teaching test-taking skills, I think students most benefit from the college preparatory aspects of the class. To me, Wikis can go a long way to building students' competence as collaborators, communicators, and users of the digital interface. Each of these skill sets are necessary at the college level, so introducing students to the wiki-styled forum in high school gets them a leg-up.
My particular wiki is modeled to fulfill a hypothetical grading contract I would use in the AP environment. I was first introduced to the grading contract last semester in my Theories of Teaching Writing class where students were responsible for completing their own work. There was not a letter/number value assigned to every assignment the students submitted, but the assignment had to meet a satisfactory standard of effort or else it would be considered "missed." If students completed every assignment to satisfaction, they would receive a B+, so they would need to complete one of the optional "extra assignments" in order to push their grade to an A. I like this form of grading because it puts all the power in the students' hands and gives them a sense of control over their grade.
Here is a sample below (note: a very rough draft, not specific to any particular syllabus):
Grade
Assignments
complete
Assignments
missed
Assignments
Ignored
Extra
Assignments
A-
8
0
0
2
B+
8
0
0
1
B
7
1
0
0
B-
7
0
1
0
C+
6
2
0
0
C
6
1
1
0
C-
6
0
2
0
D+
5
3
0
0
D
5
2
1
0
D-
5
1
2
0
F
5
0
3
0
According to this contract, there will be 8 required assignments scheduled throughout the year. If student do not complete these by their due date, they can submit the work within the next 48 hours and get a "missed" grade. Ignored assignments miss this deadline completely. There will also be several "Extra Assignments" throughout the year. These assignments allow students to push their satisfactory B+ grade to the As. They also allow students to bring up the bottom end of their grade if they missed or ignored any required assignments. For example, if a student completes an extra assignment, they can turn an ignored assignment into a missed, or a missed into a complete. The contract tops off at A- so Reading Response participation can be factored in for the last 7-10%.
The wiki works in tandem with this contract because it provides a place for students to receive their assignment prompts, complete their reading responses, and enter discussions with their classmates.
Assignments
Students can either receive their assignment prompt in real-time on the homepage feed or enter the "Projects" section. They can also go onto the class "Calendar" where they can see when all assignments, required or extra, are due. When they are done, they can submit their work on the "Submit Assignment" section tab where they should follow the given instructions.
Reading Responses
Students will be expected to submit a reading response to questions posed by two designated Discussion Starters every class. This can be found on the "Reading Response" tab. Their level of participation will factor into the grading contract at the end of the year.
Hive Mind
The Hive Mind is an informal discussion forum where students can post any ideas, news clippings, videos, or anything related to our class material or AP tests. Students who post in the Hive Mind weekly (originally or response) will receive credit for an Extra Assignment.
The Wiki, The Contract, The Class - Putting it all together
The Wiki and grading contract work in tandem to guide the students' out of class expectations. Their out of class time will consist of brief readings, online discussion, and assignment completion. Although this sounds very homework-heavy, no reading responses will ever be due the same week a required assignment is due. This is to ensure the students' work is concentrated and is conducive for high quality.
Because this is set up for an AP class, our class time will consist of reading discussions and test skill-builders. Every day, the we will either workshop particular AP test taking skills or will practice a portion of the test (essay or MC test). These practices are low stakes and will work outside the framework of the grading contract.
Blog
For this assignment, students will design a blog that connects readings we have done in class to modern artists. The assignment will aim to accomplish the following:
- Students will be able to identify features of classical works that sustain in the modern world
- Students will be able to make connections across artistic mediums
- Students will be able to produce public texts through the blog forum
Process
First, students will choose one of the authors whose works we have read this year and become "experts" on this author. They should do research that focuses on details surrounding the author's career. How did this author view his or herself? What skills did they possess apart from other authors? What was this author's impact? Students should also button up their understanding of the text we read in class. What stylistic features are unique to the text? How does the author use literary devices and manipulate language to create meaning?
Next, students will choose a modern artist whose career and works connects to the chosen text and its accompanying author. This artist should work in an artistic medium different from literature. He or she can be a musician, filmmaker, visual artist, or any artistic position so long as the student can defend their place as an artist.
At this point, students should start drafting their project's abstract and four blog posts. The abstract should be a few sentences describing the blog's overall idea and the overarching connections between the two artists/artworks. Each blog should be 350-500 words and should either draw a connection between some aspect of the artists' complete body of works OR a concentrated comparison between our class reading and a work done by the second artist (text to text connection). Both types of blog posts should be present among the four total.
I recommend the class uses the blog site Wix. This site is user-friendly and provides step-by-step directions for first-time bloggers. They should follow these steps:
1) Go to Wix.com and create an account (preferably with student email)
2) Enter "Get started" page
3) Choose blog -> personal blog
4) Choose ADI (interactive, step-by-step for new users) or Editor (for experienced bloggers who want creative control)
From here, students will be able to design their Home, Blog, and Contact pages. The home page should at least include their project abstract, and the four blogs should be posted separately on the blog page. On the Contact page, students should offer more resources on where readers can find more texts related to the topic AND recommend related topics for readers to explore. Students are welcome to view my blog that was designed according to these steps: connersnd.wixsite.com/whitmanwest
students to enter the global online participatory culture. Participatory culture, in short, is the online community's covert agreement to legitimize all participants as producers, giving as much credence to the common user as one would give to a powerful news network. Recent scholarship suggests this kind of community can be beneficial to young people in classrooms around the world, saying students are more likely to adopt a more global perspective and gain higher insight to other worldviews and cultures by engaging in this sort of global conversation with peers worldwide. Scholarship also suggests online participation will aptly prepare students for participation in an increasingly globalized workforce, as they will gain social skills and communication styles appropriate for this environment.
This article, therefore, aims to find out if these suggestions would show up in a concrete, structured study that connects students across the globe through online communication. The authors chose to conduct a case study on two classrooms, one in Canada and one in Hong Kong, who were to participate in an online forum, answering a series of prompts under three themes: engaging cultural and linguistic diversity, engaging participation in social learning platforms, and engaging multiple intelligences and media. Every student was assigned a number so their answers could be tracked by ranges of attitudes, shift in perspective, peer acknowledgement and other areas (ex. "student HK34 said..."). Although the study does not rely on quantitative data, it still concludes that the students did "perceive this cross-cultural, participatory, and design-based learning experience as enabling their collective and critical reflection, their increased ease to negotiate and pool knowledge across cultural differences, and the growth of their situated understanding of the local and global educational challenges."
Visualization of Theme 1 online interactions.
Takeaway
Although the article showcases a unique opportunity for their students to directly engage with students online, my biggest takeaway is technology's potential to expose students to a more global perspective. To me, class lessons don't have to be as directly involved with foreign students in order to achieve a similar effect; videos that showcase foreign people and their global impact can also leave an impression. I think this study yields positive outcomes mostly because students listened to someone else's story, acknowledged the validity of their perspective, and made a personal connection. To me, that's what this is all about. Don't get me wrong, I think the opportunity to directly correspond with a foreign class is very beneficial, but I think technology allows for some creative lesson design in case that connection is not available. Of course, school systems worldwide may catch wind of studies like this one and decide to mandate these sorts of connections.
I think this article also plays well into the idea that online communication between classmates has the potential to make connections these students would otherwise never make. Here, I'm speaking exclusively to the singular classroom where students may be "cliqued-out" or where a few are obvious outliers. Technology does not transfer one's complete in-the-moment presence and personality, so online we get a stripped down version of the face-to-face social environment with some unique features of its own (ability to directly share, express, and show off his or her creations). Thus, technology has the potential to transcend social boundaries in the bathroom, as well.
Social Media Assignment
In this assignment, students are provided smartphones with the Snapchat app. A new feature to Snapchat is "Discover," a forum for news outlets to feature various articles and bring viewers live to the action of any major event. Students will feature their own live broadcast by covering a local event in the area. This event can count as nearly any gathering in our community; it can be the high school football game, a concert, a visit to a local coffee shop, or even dinner with the family. Students will just need to submit a proposal for their event, including date and time of the event.
When it comes time for students to cover their event, they should post to their "story" using the following guidelines:
1) Intro video
- solid visual representation and text concisely describing the event
2) Pre- Event (following guidelines should be intermixed)
- TWO to FOUR static images that use short text or emojis/illustrations that contribute to image
- TWO to FOUR videos of event's preparation or event participants entering
- at least ONE selfie-video giving commentary or facts related to event
3) Event
- THREE to FOUR videos that capture highlights of the event (should work as a snapshot narrative of what happened)
- at least ONE static photo that captures a key moment
4) Post Event
- ONE selfie video giving final synopsis/conclusion from event
- ONE static photo showing what is left of event (textual sign-off)
Afterward, students should take their Snapchat Story projects and write an accompanying news article (350-450 words) that describes the event and event's background as it unfolded on the Snapchat Story.
Accompanying Post
I first thought about constructing a project that involves Snapchat when I started following the attack on ISIS in Mosul through VICE News' Discover feature. The feature left me impressed with how immediate, concise, and impactful this kind of reporting can be, especially to millennials. Therefore, I believe this project can serve as a great way to get students to understand the goals of journalistic writing and the variety of ways they can be achieved. Every time my teachers would deliver a unit on journalistic writing, they would always start with the written version and then branch out to other forms of media. Here, I am flipping the order, which I believe gives me the advantage of appealing to a form of media the students already know before bringing it to the strictly-academic level. With any luck, this sort of project will improve the students' readership and viewership by applying their own intentions to news deliver. Students will ask the following questions to themselves: How do images create messages? How can I get the most out of a ten minute sound-byte? How can I best create transitions between moments in a way that caters to my overall idea? What impression do I want to leave with the viewer? As a result, they will be encouraged to ask these questions of any news source they come across.
I think the article adds benefits to student-learning, as well. Here is part that transitions familiarity into the classroom. We want students to be able to read and write with this particular mode, so their photo/video already gives them a framework to use.
Project Revision
Although I enjoyed the first version of my Digital Storytelling assignment, I still chose to revise it because it lacked focus and did not draw a significant connection between in-class content and Vox reports. Therefore, the biggest wholesale change I made was the addition of a lesson plan that equips my students with the ability to extract and apply significant details of a text for their Vox-styled video report. Although the face-value of this project provides some fun for the students and allows them to exercise (or perhaps cultivate) technological skill, I think the accompanying lesson provides a background that buttresses the project's importance; it has grown from a stand-alone, unfocused project to the culmination of a pedagogical effort.
Image result for vox
I also made changes to the original project page, where there is now a brief introduction to Vox reports and their relationship to literary analysis (leading up to Lesson Plan attachment). There are also changes made to the project description itself. Most glaringly, I have added a 5 paragraph essay students are to complete before beginning their video. Also, the project is now focused to a single text, The Scarlet Letter. My favorite aspect of these changes is the content-consistency leading up to the project. Religiously-driven lyrics to a rap song are used to connect the lesson's main concepts to a religiously driven text, which transitions into a project that models its text analysis after Vox's rap analysis. Although the lesson does require lots of information to be covered beforehand, I think it aptly reflects state standards, as well as the prompts and response timing demanded by the AP test.
Reflection
First of all, I enjoyed every day I spent in this class! This class offered me a place where I could exchange ideas with other future teachers about what education ought to be and how we would like to make it happen. I know I have learned just as much from my classmates as I have from any text we read this year. I also appreciate the guests who came to our class. These educators are clearly well-seasoned and demonstrated competence at this positions, whether it was at the instructional or administrative level.
In regards to my own projects, I think the various assignments and examples I have created can best serve as pieces to my lesson plans. They are neither the vehicle nor the destination, but they can help me get where I am going nonetheless. Basically, they work best as assessment tools or examples for my students to use as templates. The most helpful of my projects is the revised version of my digital storytelling project. This revision is where I began thinking about these various media pieces as parts to a larger purpose, and
this realization came to fruition with my lesson plan. Here, technology caters to the vehicle side (lyrics practice) and the destination side (digital storytelling) of the lesson. On the other hand, I think my editing project did not work as I thought it would. Here, my obsessive attempt to package aspects of writing backfired, as I failed to take into account the multitude of ways editing can be practiced.
Overall, my conception of technology did change. For one thing, I can see where technology in the classroom is not just a luxury, it is an inevitability. We owe it to our students to expose them to the technology and digital practices they will one day use to communicate with others and succeed in the workplace. Purely from an instructional aspect, I think technology provides tools for maintaining students' attention, representing ideas in various ways, and assessing students' development.
About Me
Hey fam, I am a recent graduate from the College of Charleston, and I currently work as a Residence Hall Director at Berry Residence Hall (C of C). I also serve as head coach for James Island Charter High School Men's Rugby where I oversee rugby operations and player development. In my free time, I love reading and listening to hip-hip (my senior capstone project was on Kanye West and Walt Whitman). As a West Virginia native, you'll be sure to see me rocking the Old Gold and Blue to class, as well!My overarching goal for this course is to become more comfortable with the digital interface as a whole. Technology normally intimidates me until I get a good grasp of what I'm trying to use, so the more I learn from this class, the more I'll be inclined to use technology in the classroom. As a coach, I am a skills-oriented person, so I'm eager to gain skills throughout our class and hopefully recognize some skills that will be useful to my students in the future. To me, teaching and coaching require close attention to development models, which are essentially the steps instructors (on the field or the classroom) take to build their students' competence and performance. Therefore, I would like to take what I gain from this class to re-imagine long-term pedagogy, and to perhaps gain more insight on how current students best develop.
Admittedly, I am a bit ambivalent toward the digital interface; I think our worship of technology is counterproductive to our development as a social species, but technology is a reality for our students, and much of their success in the world will depend on their technological competence. To perhaps sway my position in a more positive direction, I would like this class to prioritize the "why" component of each assignment. What is the goal of using a digital interface as opposed to alternatives? What outcomes will benefit my students? Hopefully my own development with technology will equip me with ways to make the classroom experience more effective.
For my Prezi, I basically chose to replicate the main ideas of a lesson one of my high school teachers continues to deliver to her classes, which hits on the weight O'Brien places on "truth" and "fiction." I thought the balance-scale format was perfect for how I wanted to represent my thoughts on The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
As an interactive canvas, my prezi moves students from the novel's commentary on "truth" to its value as a fictional literary work. This movement is set up to fit two purposes. 1) To develop a clear understanding of why a seemingly nonfictional account contributes so strongly as a work of fiction. The Prezi introduces the novel as a metafictional work, providing a framework with which they can understand the various narrative shifts that may confuse the untrained eye. 2) To meet a South Carolina Standard. The standard listed above prioritizes the narrative's perspective as it relates to the author's style. Again, my Prezi meets this standard by providing a general framework and highlighting major techniques O'Brien uses to bring meaning to the text's surface. Overall, I think the Prezi is an effective tool for representing a text in a way that utilizes time and space, and I hope I soon have the fortune of teaching this material to my own students.
Digital Storytelling Assignment
Students will conduct their own digital storytelling project that is intended to model "Vox Rap" reports. These reports provide in-depth analysis behind the best of hip-hop's artists, both in sound and verbal production. The students' reports, however, will be geared toward the minute details that give rich meaning to literary works. This project will tap into students' creative reserves and transfer essay writing skills we have developed in-class to a vastly different textual interface, one which includes dynamic imaging and sound. Attached below is a lesson plan detailing the in-class time spent to build necessary skills for connecting small textual details to textual significance, a skill impressively demonstrated in these "Vox" reports.
Note: separate lesson time will be spent training students to use their technology to complete the assignment
Project Description
As a class, we will become acquainted with reports done by Vox, an online news outlet that delves into social, political, and artistic paradigms on an academic level. Kanye Deconstructed and Rapping Deconstructed are two videos closely related to analysis on artistic creation. Notice how these two videos accomplish the following:
- introduce viewers to the topic
- use a variety of representations to support main ideas
- use movement and transitions to make the piece continual, fluid
- provide a unique perspective on artistic techniques
Sound familiar? It should! We can credit the Vox videos with accomplishing many of the same goals we strive to achieve in our essays. Your job, therefore, is to make your own Vox-styled report on The Scarlet Letter, which we have recently finished.
First, you will write a 5 paragraph essay responding to the following prompt:
In a well-organized essay, identify a significant theme in The Scarlet Letter and show how the author's stylistic choices contribute to this theme. Your essay should include quotes from text as supporting evidence. (500-600 words)
Second, you will use your school-assigned device to create a Vox report based on the thesis and supporting details of your essay.
There are various online tools you can use to make your report. Primary movie making applications for Microsoft and Apple computers are MovieMaker and iMovie, respectively. You can also utilize sites like Animation 101 and Make Beliefs Comix if you prefer an animated approach. In any case, I would like to share my own steps for creating my video, and you can adjust these steps as you see fit for your project:
1) Create a script based on your essay
2) Storyboarding- draft how you want the video to unfold visually
3) Find online images (or videos, including your own) that fulfill your vision
4) Import images/videos
5) Record your narration
6) Edit (cutting, transitioning, add subtitles)
7) Save and share
Be sure to check out my Vox report (above) to get a general sense of how a Vox report looks from a literary aspect, but be sure to assert your own creativity in your project, as well.
Editing Assignment
For this in-class assignment, AP Language & Composition students will work together to elevate a sample rhetorical free response essay (5 paragraph) to a higher score. First, students will be given their own copy of the essay to highlight the following:
- needless prepositional phrases
- sentences, clauses, or phrases that stray from the thesis statement
- sentences, clauses, or phrases that cater to the thesis, but are misplaced in the essay
Students will be split into three groups, each group assigned with one of the above tasks, highlighting every portion of the essay that applies. If touch pad technology is available to us, they will complete this segment on their touch pad. They will be given 10 minutes to
read through the essay in its entirety before coming together as a group to complete the highlighting. Next, we will put the essay on whatever front-class technology is available to us (projector, SmartBoard, etc). We will move one paragraph at a time, reviewing the purpose and function of each paragraph along the way (introduction, body, conclusion). At each paragraph, we will also work together to decide what phrases, sentences, and clauses can be cut from the essay. We will then go back through to appropriately rearrange the misplaced phrases, sentences, and clauses that cater to the thesis. Using the AP scoring guide, we will decide if these changes alone have elevated this essay's score. For homework, students will take one of their own in-class essays they have written and complete the same process. As a final step, they should build their essay back up and re-score it using the AP score guide.
This assignment aims to accomplish the following:
1) Students will be able to recognize the "fat" of rhetorical writing
2) Students will be able to break down and rebuild their own writing
3) Students will become familiar with the AP scoring guidelines
Oral History Assignment
Now that we have read Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, we will revisit the controversy surrounding Twain’s use of the “n-word” throughout the novel. First, we will watch this 60 Minutes special on the topic. Here, our host interviews four participants: Randall Williams (New South Publisher), David Bradley (Author and Professor), Karen Morrow (high school teacher), and Nora Weiss (high school teacher), each of whom brings a unique perspective and opinion on the ethics surrounding the original publication.
Your job: Choose one of the above interviewees and first tell us their overall argument in a thesis statement (1-2 sentences). Next, use textual evidence from the novel to support their position (3 body paragraphs) and come to conclusion on how we should handle teaching Huck Finn in the class room (concluding paragraph). Your argument should accomplish the following:
- Identify whose position you support, clearly state their argument
- Properly cite your source (Huck Finn) and use quotations to support your main ideas
- Formally negate opposing viewpoints (ex.- this is David Bradley’s chance to directly respond to Randall Williams)
- Propose a solution to the controversy (Should the text be taught? If so, how?)
Here are some questions to consider when pulling evidence from the text:
- Where does the word become a distraction to the story?
- Where does the word contribute to our understanding of the story?
- What words, if any, can replace the word and maintain the story’s meaning/ impact?
- Does the word provide a “teaching moment?”
- What does this word do for Huck and Jim’s relationship? How does our reading of the word change as their relationship changes? Or does it not change at all?
On the assignment's due date, I will post all responses onto our class blog. Then, you will choose a peer's response that takes a different perspective and comment on their argument. In your comment, you should mention the aspects of their argument you most appreciated and why. All comments will be reviewed before posting, so be sure to maintain the professionalism expected of your own assignment.
My Wiki
Link: http://apliterature1.wikispaces.com/
I modeled my wiki after my own experience in an AP Literature class. Although AP classes are often closely tied to the test and demand lots of time teaching test-taking skills, I think students most benefit from the college preparatory aspects of the class. To me, Wikis can go a long way to building students' competence as collaborators, communicators, and users of the digital interface. Each of these skill sets are necessary at the college level, so introducing students to the wiki-styled forum in high school gets them a leg-up.
My particular wiki is modeled to fulfill a hypothetical grading contract I would use in the AP environment. I was first introduced to the grading contract last semester in my Theories of Teaching Writing class where students were responsible for completing their own work. There was not a letter/number value assigned to every assignment the students submitted, but the assignment had to meet a satisfactory standard of effort or else it would be considered "missed." If students completed every assignment to satisfaction, they would receive a B+, so they would need to complete one of the optional "extra assignments" in order to push their grade to an A. I like this form of grading because it puts all the power in the students' hands and gives them a sense of control over their grade.
Here is a sample below (note: a very rough draft, not specific to any particular syllabus):
complete
missed
Ignored
Assignments
The wiki works in tandem with this contract because it provides a place for students to receive their assignment prompts, complete their reading responses, and enter discussions with their classmates.
Assignments
Students can either receive their assignment prompt in real-time on the homepage feed or enter the "Projects" section. They can also go onto the class "Calendar" where they can see when all assignments, required or extra, are due. When they are done, they can submit their work on the "Submit Assignment" section tab where they should follow the given instructions.
Reading Responses
Students will be expected to submit a reading response to questions posed by two designated Discussion Starters every class. This can be found on the "Reading Response" tab. Their level of participation will factor into the grading contract at the end of the year.
Hive Mind
The Hive Mind is an informal discussion forum where students can post any ideas, news clippings, videos, or anything related to our class material or AP tests. Students who post in the Hive Mind weekly (originally or response) will receive credit for an Extra Assignment.
The Wiki, The Contract, The Class - Putting it all together
The Wiki and grading contract work in tandem to guide the students' out of class expectations. Their out of class time will consist of brief readings, online discussion, and assignment completion. Although this sounds very homework-heavy, no reading responses will ever be due the same week a required assignment is due. This is to ensure the students' work is concentrated and is conducive for high quality.
Because this is set up for an AP class, our class time will consist of reading discussions and test skill-builders. Every day, the we will either workshop particular AP test taking skills or will practice a portion of the test (essay or MC test). These practices are low stakes and will work outside the framework of the grading contract.
Blog
For this assignment, students will design a blog that connects readings we have done in class to modern artists. The assignment will aim to accomplish the following:
- Students will be able to identify features of classical works that sustain in the modern world
- Students will be able to make connections across artistic mediums
- Students will be able to produce public texts through the blog forum
Process
First, students will choose one of the authors whose works we have read this year and become "experts" on this author. They should do research that focuses on details surrounding the author's career. How did this author view his or herself? What skills did they possess apart from other authors? What was this author's impact? Students should also button up their understanding of the text we read in class. What stylistic features are unique to the text? How does the author use literary devices and manipulate language to create meaning?
Next, students will choose a modern artist whose career and works connects to the chosen text and its accompanying author. This artist should work in an artistic medium different from literature. He or she can be a musician, filmmaker, visual artist, or any artistic position so long as the student can defend their place as an artist.
At this point, students should start drafting their project's abstract and four blog posts. The abstract should be a few sentences describing the blog's overall idea and the overarching connections between the two artists/artworks. Each blog should be 350-500 words and should either draw a connection between some aspect of the artists' complete body of works OR a concentrated comparison between our class reading and a work done by the second artist (text to text connection). Both types of blog posts should be present among the four total.
I recommend the class uses the blog site Wix. This site is user-friendly and provides step-by-step directions for first-time bloggers. They should follow these steps:
1) Go to Wix.com and create an account (preferably with student email)
2) Enter "Get started" page
3) Choose blog -> personal blog
4) Choose ADI (interactive, step-by-step for new users) or Editor (for experienced bloggers who want creative control)
From here, students will be able to design their Home, Blog, and Contact pages. The home page should at least include their project abstract, and the four blogs should be posted separately on the blog page. On the Contact page, students should offer more resources on where readers can find more texts related to the topic AND recommend related topics for readers to explore. Students are welcome to view my blog that was designed according to these steps:
connersnd.wixsite.com/whitmanwest
Current Scholarship
Summary
I recently read a study published in the Teaching and Teacher Education journal which provides a concrete case-study on technology as a way for
This article, therefore, aims to find out if these suggestions would show up in a concrete, structured study that connects students across the globe through online communication. The authors chose to conduct a case study on two classrooms, one in Canada and one in Hong Kong, who were to participate in an online forum, answering a series of prompts under three themes: engaging cultural and linguistic diversity, engaging participation in social learning platforms, and engaging multiple intelligences and media. Every student was assigned a number so their answers could be tracked by ranges of attitudes, shift in perspective, peer acknowledgement and other areas (ex. "student HK34 said..."). Although the study does not rely on quantitative data, it still concludes that the students did "perceive this cross-cultural, participatory, and design-based learning experience as enabling their collective and critical reflection, their increased ease to negotiate and pool knowledge across cultural differences, and the growth of their situated understanding of the local and global educational challenges."
Takeaway
Although the article showcases a unique opportunity for their students to directly engage with students online, my biggest takeaway is technology's potential to expose students to a more global perspective. To me, class lessons don't have to be as directly involved with foreign students in order to achieve a similar effect; videos that showcase foreign people and their global impact can also leave an impression. I think this study yields positive outcomes mostly because students listened to someone else's story, acknowledged the validity of their perspective, and made a personal connection. To me, that's what this is all about. Don't get me wrong, I think the opportunity to directly correspond with a foreign class is very beneficial, but I think technology allows for some creative lesson design in case that connection is not available. Of course, school systems worldwide may catch wind of studies like this one and decide to mandate these sorts of connections.
I think this article also plays well into the idea that online communication between classmates has the potential to make connections these students would otherwise never make. Here, I'm speaking exclusively to the singular classroom where students may be "cliqued-out" or where a few are obvious outliers. Technology does not transfer one's complete in-the-moment presence and personality, so online we get a stripped down version of the face-to-face social environment with some unique features of its own (ability to directly share, express, and show off his or her creations). Thus, technology has the potential to transcend social boundaries in the bathroom, as well.
Social Media Assignment
In this assignment, students are provided smartphones with the Snapchat app. A new feature to Snapchat is "Discover," a forum for news outlets to feature various articles and bring viewers live to the action of any major event. Students will feature their own live broadcast by covering a local event in the area. This event can count as nearly any gathering in our community; it can be the high school football game, a concert, a visit to a local coffee shop, or even dinner with the family. Students will just need to submit a proposal for their event, including date and time of the event.
When it comes time for students to cover their event, they should post to their "story" using the following guidelines:
1) Intro video
- solid visual representation and text concisely describing the event
2) Pre- Event (following guidelines should be intermixed)
- TWO to FOUR static images that use short text or emojis/illustrations that contribute to image
- TWO to FOUR videos of event's preparation or event participants entering
- at least ONE selfie-video giving commentary or facts related to event
3) Event
- THREE to FOUR videos that capture highlights of the event (should work as a snapshot narrative of what happened)
- at least ONE static photo that captures a key moment
4) Post Event
- ONE selfie video giving final synopsis/conclusion from event
- ONE static photo showing what is left of event (textual sign-off)
Afterward, students should take their Snapchat Story projects and write an accompanying news article (350-450 words) that describes the event and event's background as it unfolded on the Snapchat Story.
Accompanying Post
I first thought about constructing a project that involves Snapchat when I started following the attack on ISIS in Mosul through VICE News' Discover feature. The feature left me impressed with how immediate, concise, and impactful this kind of reporting can be, especially to millennials. Therefore, I believe this project can serve as a great way to get students to understand the goals of journalistic writing and the variety of ways they can be achieved. Every time my teachers would deliver a unit on journalistic writing, they would always start with the written version and then branch out to other forms of media. Here, I am flipping the order, which I believe gives me the advantage of appealing to a form of media the students already know before bringing it to the strictly-academic level. With any luck, this sort of project will improve the students' readership and viewership by applying their own intentions to news deliver. Students will ask the following questions to themselves: How do images create messages? How can I get the most out of a ten minute sound-byte? How can I best create transitions between moments in a way that caters to my overall idea? What impression do I want to leave with the viewer? As a result, they will be encouraged to ask these questions of any news source they come across.
I think the article adds benefits to student-learning, as well. Here is part that transitions familiarity into the classroom. We want students to be able to read and write with this particular mode, so their photo/video already gives them a framework to use.
Project Revision
Although I enjoyed the first version of my Digital Storytelling assignment, I still chose to revise it because it lacked focus and did not draw a significant connection between in-class content and Vox reports. Therefore, the biggest wholesale change I made was the addition of a lesson plan that equips my students with the ability to extract and apply significant details of a text for their Vox-styled video report. Although the face-value of this project provides some fun for the students and allows them to exercise (or perhaps cultivate) technological skill, I think the accompanying lesson provides a background that buttresses the project's importance; it has grown from a stand-alone, unfocused project to the culmination of a pedagogical effort.
I also made changes to the original project page, where there is now a brief introduction to Vox reports and their relationship to literary analysis (leading up to Lesson Plan attachment). There are also changes made to the project description itself. Most glaringly, I have added a 5 paragraph essay students are to complete before beginning their video. Also, the project is now focused to a single text, The Scarlet Letter. My favorite aspect of these changes is the content-consistency leading up to the project. Religiously-driven lyrics to a rap song are used to connect the lesson's main concepts to a religiously driven text, which transitions into a project that models its text analysis after Vox's rap analysis. Although the lesson does require lots of information to be covered beforehand, I think it aptly reflects state standards, as well as the prompts and response timing demanded by the AP test.
Reflection
First of all, I enjoyed every day I spent in this class! This class offered me a place where I could exchange ideas with other future teachers about what education ought to be and how we would like to make it happen. I know I have learned just as much from my classmates as I have from any text we read this year. I also appreciate the guests who came to our class. These educators are clearly well-seasoned and demonstrated competence at this positions, whether it was at the instructional or administrative level.
In regards to my own projects, I think the various assignments and examples I have created can best serve as pieces to my lesson plans. They are neither the vehicle nor the destination, but they can help me get where I am going nonetheless. Basically, they work best as assessment tools or examples for my students to use as templates. The most helpful of my projects is the revised version of my digital storytelling project. This revision is where I began thinking about these various media pieces as parts to a larger purpose, and
this realization came to fruition with my lesson plan. Here, technology caters to the vehicle side (lyrics practice) and the destination side (digital storytelling) of the lesson. On the other hand, I think my editing project did not work as I thought it would. Here, my obsessive attempt to package aspects of writing backfired, as I failed to take into account the multitude of ways editing can be practiced.
Overall, my conception of technology did change. For one thing, I can see where technology in the classroom is not just a luxury, it is an inevitability. We owe it to our students to expose them to the technology and digital practices they will one day use to communicate with others and succeed in the workplace. Purely from an instructional aspect, I think technology provides tools for maintaining students' attention, representing ideas in various ways, and assessing students' development.